Magazine

A folded organic cotton baby tee sitting next to a wooden teether on a bed

Why finding a real usa baby tee is a nightmare (and how to fix it)

Yellow mustard poop all the way up the shoulder blades. That's what I was dealing with at two in the morning in my freezing Chicago apartment, trying to pry a rigid, zero-stretch miniature t-shirt over my screaming son's head. I...

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Newborn baby wearing a layered winter dress and cotton tights

The truth about newborn winter dresses and freezing temperatures

November in Chicago is a specific kind of brutal. The wind does that thing where it physically hurts your face. I was standing in my hallway holding my three-week-old daughter, who was stuffed into a thick velvet holiday dress, layered...

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A baby wearing a white cropped baby tee while lying on a playmat.

Why the cropped baby tee saved my sanity and his cord stump

Day five postpartum. Three in the morning. July in Chicago. The window unit AC was rattling like a dying lawnmower, the ambient humidity was somewhere around ninety percent, and my son was screaming with the kind of intensity that makes...

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A folded pile of soft, stretchy ribbed baby shirts in muted earth tones.

Why I Tossed Half My Baby Shirts (And Exactly What I Buy Now)

I was sitting on the floor of my oldest’s nursery, staring at a rigid, non-stretching denim baby button-down that some well-meaning relative had gifted us, realizing there was zero chance I was getting it over his giant 99th-percentile head without...

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Baby wearing a thin organic cotton sweater over a base layer in a car seat

Dear past Priya: A winter reality check about baby knits

Dear Priya from six months ago. You're currently standing in the baby aisle of a boutique in Lincoln Park, heavily pregnant, holding a chunky cable-knit wool outfit that costs more than your monthly parking spot. The wind is howling off...

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Toddler wearing a chunky oversized sweater looking away from camera

The survival guide to the baby knit pullover

It was thirty degrees in Chicago last November, and my fourteen-month-old was doing the alligator death roll on the living room rug. I was attempting to line up three microscopic buttons on a very trendy, very stiff denim jacket his...

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A tired mom holding an organic cotton pink flutter sleeve bodysuit surrounded by messy toddler toys

When the Pink Bubble Pops: Surviving the Baby Glinda Obsession

It was 7:14 AM on a Tuesday, and I was standing in the kitchen wearing my husband's stained college sweatpants, desperately trying to scrape dried oatmeal off the counter with my thumbnail, when Maya marched in. My seven-year-old had a...

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A toddler standing barefoot on a carpet holding a pair of stiff baby sneakers

The truth about the best baby shoes and why ours went in the trash

It was a Tuesday morning, probably around 9 AM, and I was sitting on our living room rug wearing black yoga pants that featured a very distinct, crusted-over smear of smashed avocado on the left knee. Maya was ten months...

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Messy pile of organic baby clothing on a nursery floor next to a half-empty coffee cup

What I Got Completely Wrong About Building My First Baby's Layette

I was standing in the middle of our driveway in a pair of Dave's gym shorts that I'd aggressively rolled down underneath my 38-week pregnant belly, holding a tiny, stiff denim jacket with functional metal buttons, and I was just...

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